"Negotiating the Business Deal in China"

Nexsen Pruet special counsel Joe Diab was a presenter at the National Business Institute's CLE seminar on December 7th in Raleigh.  The event was entitled "The Legalities of Doing Business in China."

Diab was among a panel of attorneys, government leaders and business executives who gathered to share insight into their experience working within the Chinese business environment.

As part of the program, Diab presented a paper entitled "Negotiating the Business Deal in China."  Here is an excerpt:

"The primary reason that Western negotiators fail in China is their failure to understand the culture and its influence on Chinese negotiators.

While much can be said about China’s long history and recent economic rise, no one could defensibly assert that China is currently or has historically been home to the “land of plenty” or the “land of opportunity.”  Much of the history of China has been the history of scarcity in which large segments of the population have grown accustomed to not having enough of many basic necessities with which many Western societies have become quite familiar, such as food, money, freedom or opportunity.  In the current Chinese economy, two-thirds of the population still live in an agrarian, rural environment and depend upon harvesting rice or wheat in a traditional, communal environment.  Survival depends upon group cooperation and harmony. Loyalty, obedience and hierarchy hold the group together."

Click here for the complete article ""Negotiating the Business Deal in China."

F. Joseph Diab earned his law degree and master’s degree in international law from Duke University where he served as a senior editor on the International Law Journal.  While in law school he interned with the legal departments of the United Nations and the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.  He is former chair of the North Carolina Bar Association Section on International Law and Practice.